Name: Clayton Cotterell

Place you live: Portland, OR

Place your photo was taken: Terrebonne, OR

Can you sum up Portland?  Perma-vacation when the sun comes out.  PDX has a really creative and supportive creative community that I’m glad to be a part of.

Occupation: Photographer, Professor, and re-toucher.

Preoccupation: Rock Climbing

A perfect day in Portland? Eating a bountiful breakfast in my back yard, grabbing my camera and hitting the road with my lady for a day trip of playing around in the nearby mountains and rivers.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Visit Ampersand Gallery and Fine Books in NE Portland. Best curated space around.

A perfect meal in the place you call home? Peanut butter and jelly sandwich on really nice bread, anywhere with a view.

What is the best thing about your spot? Geographical variety.

What is the worst? I don’t want to say the rain, but it’s the rain.

A little known fact about where you live? Everyone composts, everyone.

Where is your favorite place in the world? I’m not totally sure. I’d consider myself a mountain person over a beach person if that helps at all.

You can follow Clayton on his blog and website. 

Name: Tod Seelie

Place you live: Brooklyn, NY at least half of the year.

Place your photo was taken? Bottle Beach.

Occupation: Photographer.

Preoccupation: New places and experiences.

A perfect day in Brooklyn? A day that is so packed that by the end of it feels like it’s been two.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? People-watch.

A perfect meal in Brooklyn? Breakfast in my backyard.

What is the best thing about your spot? It is consistently interesting and hazardous.

What is the worst? It’s probably wrecking the surrounding environment with pollution.

A little known fact about where you live? There’s a beach built on a landfill.

Where is your favorite place in the world? Somewhere I haven’t been yet.

Tod’s websites: Todseelie.com - Suckapants.com - Everydayilive.com - Ofquiet.com

Name: Jessica Comingore

Place you live: Los Angeles, California

Place your photos were taken: Barnsdall Park in Los Angeles.

Can you sum up the place you live in a short paragraph? Los Angeles is a melting pot where cultures collide and dreams are alive. The weather is sunny just about year-round, and you can drive to the beach as easily as you can to the mountains; swim in the ocean or get lost among the mountain trails. Though the city is centered around the entertainment industry, there are pockets of thriving creative scenes ranging from young entrepreneurs to furniture makers, to coffee roasters and chefs. Though it often gets a bad wrap, Los Angeles does have a vast and inspiring history, and if you’re willing to deal with the traffic, you have the opportunity to do just about anything on any given day. There is a relaxed vibe that Angelenos tend to adopt, but there’s also a fair share of hustling to capitalize on what’s bigger, better, and next. It’s a fast-paced city where trends come and go at the blink of an eye, but once you settle in to a great neighborhood and find a genuine group of like-minded friends, it can be hard to imagine anywhere else you’d rather be.

Occupation: Designer, Creative

Preoccupation: Photography

A perfect day in Los Angeles? I love waking up with the sun, hiking up to the Griffith Observatory and looking out on to the city before most of it is awake. After I get home and enjoy a cup of coffee, I’ll head off to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market to stock up on fresh fruit, veggies, fish, flowers — you name it. I’ll then spend the afternoon window shopping around some of my favorite streets in Silverlake, and if it’s a beautiful summer evening, I’ll meet up with friends for an early picnic at the Hollywood Bowl, followed by what is sure to be a stellar outdoor concert at my favorite venue in town.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Visit the Getty Museum, eat at one of the many amazing restaurants in downtown, followed by a fancy cocktail at one of the many amazing bars, go hiking in Temescal Canyon, window shop on Abbot Kinney in Venice, lay on the beach in Malibu, visit the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, peruse the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena, walk the art galleries in Culver City — the list is really endless.

A perfect meal in Los Angeles? I love having dinner at a little restaurant near my apartment called Little Dom’s — it’s a classic Italian menu and they make the best whiskey sour I’ve ever had. They also host a $15 supper on Monday nights that is superb.

What is the best thing about your spot? The weather — the sun shines just about every day.

What is the worst? The traffic. It can take upwards of two hours to go ten miles in this town.

A little known fact about where you live? The building I live in was actually built by Walt Disney back in the day to house the artists that worked at his studios over in Burbank. Every unit is quaint and has the most charming 1920′s Spanish details.

Where is your favorite place in the world? I visited a friend in Spain the end of last year and fell in love. When we spent a long weekend down south in Granada, I was convinced I had never been anywhere quite so relaxing and beautiful in my life. I had dreams of returning for months after the trip ended.

Name: Emilia Bergmark- Jiménez

Place you live: Beautiful city of Stockholm, Sweden

Place your photo was taken? In a club called “The Night” that only plays power-ballads. Its about twenty minutes from my house but it was an adventure coming there since a snow blizzard was going on outside.

Can you sum up Stockholm? Its clean, its safe, its beautiful, its expensive, its high maintenance, its shallow, its social democratic and yet its not, its sublime, its segregated and solitary. I hate it and I love it, I want to move and I want to live here forever.

Occupation: Photographer

Preoccupation: Everything that has to do with being a freelance photographer. And animals and plants. When I have time.

A perfect day in Stockholm? Last Sunday when we had coffee with a lot of friends and ended up biking around the city in the first spring sun (although it is still really cold, imagine people biking in a LOT of clothes) and then went to the movies and watched the Hunger Games. Or, the most perfect day of all, leaving the city and going to my summer house just 30 min outside Stockholm. I could do that any day and never come back.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? They must come in summer and they must go swimming. If you come in summer you can do ANYTHING, EVERYTHING is wonderful. If you plan to come during winter, just don´t.

A perfect meal in Stockholm? La Neta, the one and only Mexican taqueria and in my house where I make a mean carbonara and my boyfriend cooks all kinds of meat for a very long time.

What is the best thing about your spot? My apartment. Is a safe haven of light and green flowers up among the trees, so close but just safe outside the ever and forever stressful core of Stockholm.

What is the worst? That my apartment isn’t mine and that I only get to live in it for one more year. So it kind of sums it up for you, Stockholm have a huge housing problem.

A little known fact about where you live? Sweden is probably the most secularized country in the world.

Where is your favorite place in the world? My summer house, my boyfriends arms.

Name: Ed Panar

Place you live: Pittsburgh, PA

Occupation: self-unemployed

Preoccupation: OOO (object-oriented ontology)

What is a perfect day in Pittsburgh? Long leisurely walks in any season that zigzag across the hilly topography.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Walk around and explore on foot as much as possible.  There are quite a few hidden staircases throughout the hillside neighborhoods that are fun to get lost exploring.

A perfect meal in Pittsburgh? It might have to be enjoying the excellent Thai at Pusadee’s Garden sitting in their serene garden area on a warm evening.

What is the best thing about your spot? Pittsburgh is a beautiful and hidden city. There are countless scenic vistas of the rugged landscape to be found in every neighborhood.

What is the worst? The occasional asshole driver can make walking or biking a little aggravating at times.

A little known fact about Pittsburgh? The Big Mac was invented here.

Where is your favorite place in the world? Urban: Tokyo – Rural: California

Name: Robert Warren

Place you live: Portland, OR

Place your photo was taken: The top of Mt. Tabor in Portland.

Can you sum up Portland? Portland is a rainy city that’s really spread out. Each neighborhood has a lot to offer as far as things to do and places to eat. Portland is also really big on things being “local”; local foods, local breweries, local artists. With the exception of the mall downtown, Portland feels like it is in its own country most of time.

Occupation: Photographer

Preoccupation: Pictures, music.

A perfect day in Portland? Any sunny day, the city feels twice as populated because everyone is outside.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Check out the food trucks scattered around the city. Go to Powell’s and buy a book. Get a car and go to the coast.

A perfect meal in Portland? Go to The Farm Cafe and see what’s on their ever-changing seasonal menu, then eat everything on that menu.

What is the best thing about your spot? It’s proximity to surf and snow. Drive an hour and half west and see the Pacific ocean, or drive an hour east and look up at Mt. Hood. Also, Portland is really bike-friendly.

What is the worst? It rains too much. The summers are short.

A little known fact about where you live? Apparently Portland has the most microbreweries located within its city limits than any other city in the world.

Where is your favorite place in the world? New York City, NY or the Adirondacks, NY

Name: Jordan Carroll

Place you live: I’m currently based in Leeds, England.

Place your photo was taken: Salford, Manchester England.

Can you sum up Manchester? The city center of Manchester is definitely nothing to complain about but living in the small town of Eccles, Salford isn’t the most exciting of experiences, it feels like everyone’s stuck there and I’d always spend most of my time in town.

Occupation: Student

Preoccupation: Photographer

A perfect day in Manchester? Definitely in the city, I’d say spending the day looking around the second hand/vintage/clothes shops. There’s a lot of record stores and nice cafes and bars too, particularly around Northern Quarter and especially during the summer.

A perfect meal? A big plate of seasoned fries from Common Bar is pretty good.

What is the best thing about your spot? There’s always something different you can be doing, which saves from a bout of boredom.

What is the worst? Loud mouthed weekend drunks.

Name: Clayton Lee

Place you live: I’ve lived in Knoxville, Tennessee the longest so far

Place your photo was taken: both taken in Tennessee (top image is at a quarry a truck ride away from the city, and the bottom image is at an abandoned kroger that was beside my old house)

Can you sum up Knoxville, Tennessee? When I was driving down the street in my friend Loren’s crowded car, we were going down Magnolia Street and it was late and empty, and I told him that there was a mysteriousness inside of all of the emptiness, the parking lots of trash, small shitty shops, there was a kind of remorseless beauty in that orange yellow light from the street lights, in the waffle house parking lot, beside the interstate that goes to the Straw Plains. Stuff that I’ve felt so limited by or disliked about this place when I was a kid now has become the pieces that make it such a beautiful and dirty place. Knoxville has a lot of obscure holes to hangout in and it is really easy to get to know it well and get comfortable. The beauty of it is that on one end its a really vicious-cycle-prone drug-city with a lot of messed up problems, on the other end there is a remorselessness to it’s dark beauty that I can’t quite describe, part of my work is usually a search for that very notion.

Occupation: freelance whatever, washing windows

Preoccupation: reading

A perfect day in Knoxville? Playing music with my friend Loren and staying up writing opium lyrics and sketching and then shoving all of the shit under his bed because the next day it will all be eaten by his old room, it would be perfect if all of the shit didn’t change and it was like I was a kid again.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? sleep at the nature reserve in their car

A perfect meal in Knoxville? My mothers food is better than anything else, but outside of that there is Senor Taco, or there is this little rad pizza place called Harby’s beside a cool record and tape shop in a nice little pocket off of Broadway.

What is the best thing about your spot? skateboarding childhood

What is the worst? scars

A little known fact about where you live? the good stuff is hidden in weird places

Where is your favorite place in the world? The atlas, I am trying to find all of it and everything all at once, right now I am in love with Vietnam and Cambodia, but that’s just because i was just there for a fleeting moment.

See Clayton’s full series titled “Riverkids” about people and places around Knoxville, Tennessee at his website.

Name: Steven Beckly

Place you live: Toronto, Canada

Place your photo was taken: Cheltenham Badlands, about an hour drive from Toronto

Occupation: Artist

Preoccupation: Wanderer

A perfect day in Toronto? Brunch at Little Fish (our go-to spot in the Junction, where my partner and I live) is a must, a bike ride through High Park, and some gallery hopping downtown.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Spend a day by the Harbourfront.

A perfect meal in Toronto? Tacos at Grand Electric. I waited 3 hours once, and ate my meal in 15 minutes. Worth the wait.

What is the best thing about Toronto? Good food. Good art scene. Tons of places to explore.

What is the worst? A big city can always use some small town charm.

Where was the last place you traveled to? New York City.

Where is the next place you’d like to travel to? Berlin, Tokyo, or Reykjavik. All three if my get-rich-quick scheme takes off.

Where is your favorite place in the world? That’s too hard to answer! I can tell you the place that I miss the most is Portland (Oregon). It has the body of a big city with the heart of a small town. Plus, I have friends there who I think about all the time and miss dearly.

Name: Hunter Savoy Jaffe

Place you live: Baltimore, Maryland

Place your photo was taken: Lovepoint, Maryland

Can you sum up Baltimore? Baltimore is a vomit of contrastive people living within the same few square miles. The convergence of these different backgrounds, interests, styles, and views pushes Baltimore forward in the realm of visual, musical, architectural, and communal exploration – and no one here is shy about letting you know it. Baltimore is incredibly alive with activity – there’s always an exhibition to see, a museum to visit, a show to attend, kids to catch up with, new spots to find, new projects being brewed.

Occupation: Student

Preoccupation: Drop Out

A perfect day in Baltimore? A day of piling into someones car, finding a new/old spot or trail, wandering/hiking for the majority of the day, stopping at a diner on the way home, splitting up to take naps, reconvening at a rowdy show lasting till the early morning.

If someone was visiting, what must they do? Get out to Prettyboy Res., hike part of the Appalachian Trail – look up any exhibition opening, event, or show, that is more or less guaranteed to be happening at any given point.

A perfect meal in Baltimore? Iggys Pizza – B.Y.O.B.

What is the best thing about your spot? Being surrounded by freaky, powerful, intelligent, clever kids and free museums.

What is the worst? Fear Of Rat Attack.

A little known fact about where you live? A patentee of the Ouija board is buried down the road at Greenmount Cemetery – his tombstone being only that of the imagery/text on a Ouija board.

Where is your favorite place in the world? A tie between Grand Valley Colorado, Big Sur, and the Great Smokey Mountains.